Apple has reportedly blocked two new emoji – both of which feature guns – ahead of next week's proposed Unicode 9.0 update.

The two characters, originally slated to roll out with 72 new symbols , were a rifle and a "modern pentathlon" icon, which depicted a man shooting a gun.

According to Buzzfeed, the tech giant started the conversation to remove the two characters from the 9.0 update during a meeting with Unicode Consortium in May, with Apple reps making it clear the firm would not support a rifle on its platforms and asking for the emoji to be excluded from the list of candidates.

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Microsoft, also a voting member of Unicode, reportedly agreed with Apple to remove the two emojis from the list.

Apple declined to comment, while Unicode president Mark Davis confirmed that "the committee decided not to mark them as Emoji, but to add them as characters (that is, normal black & white symbols)".

Rifle, shotgun and pistol shooting are all Olympic events, and pistol shooting is also part of the modern pentathlon.

The news that they would not be featured in the upcoming emoji update sparked debate on Twitter, with some users pointing out it's harder to get their hands on a gun emoji than a real gun in some countries - an especially potent topic in the wake of the Orlando shootings last weekend.